Game ID
Find your next favorite video game
Game ID is an app that lets people find new games and where to play them. You can make and share lists, rate, review and more. The app has been a playground to learn new skills. It’s been a over decade long unrealized side-project until it recently launched on the Apple App Store.
Attempt 1
In 2010, I met my designer friend, Matt Cox, during an internship at Opera Software. He had an idea for a video game database. We didn’t have any engineering skills, but we designed it all and had big dreams for what it could be. Matt did most of the branding and I mostly helped out doing UI stuff. At some point we decided to pay someone to help us build it. We paid him 80% of the money after 80% of the progress was done. It became stuck at 80% and we learned a valuable lesson.
Attempt 2-5
For the next few years, I would take on Game ID alone and change the concept multiple times though it was always about video games. I’d redesign it for fun and drop it for a few months. Rinse, repeat.
One year in university, I decided to take my ASP.NET skills and build it myself. I struggled and barely made it halfway there.
Many years later I decided to learn React Native and Firebase for prototyping purposes. I thought I could apply these skills and build it as an app. I also learned Firebase and quickly learned that I tried too many things and became a victim to forever expanding scope creep.
Another couple of years passed and I decided to toy around again. I wanted to learn about APIs so I learned Node.js and Express.js. I had a fully working API working and React Native building for web, iOS, and Android. It was magical… but after a few months the authentication part of the API stopped working and progress was once again paused.
Attempt ???
In 2022 my developer friend, Darren, helped take part and build it all for iOS powered by a custom API. We even have a control panel to curate content in the app, schedule and send notifications, and pick daily news.
My long passion for video games has resulted in never letting this side project go. It’s also never meant to be anything more than a project to learn and have fun. And I like it that way.
